


Contacts

by LaVieEnRose



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 01:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14581809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVieEnRose/pseuds/LaVieEnRose
Summary: Over the years, they saved each other under different names.





	Contacts

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason I've always wondered when Brian and Justin first saved each other's numbers, so I wrote this.

1  
Justin first gets Brian's number his first or his second time at Deb's, from the flour-smudged list that's held onto her fridge by a magnet of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In a flash, before anyone can notice, Justin has it in his phone. Nervous that his parents will see it, he saves it under “B,” just B. He doesn't call it for months; he's older now, already embarrassed by the boy who thought after one fuck that he had a boyfriend. But he has it. He calls it the first time once they're living together, when Brian's at work and he has a question about the TV. Brian doesn't ask how he got it, and when Justin asks him, “Do you want to go to Woody's tonight?” before he hangs up, the non-pause before the casual, “Yeah, sure,” keeps Justin alive for days.

Brian doesn't save Justin's number, out of principle—the only numbers he has saved anyway are Michael, Lindsey, Ted, and work shit—and he only calls it once or twice, when Justin's at Debbie's and Brian's drunk or bored or pissed at Michael and feels like fucking someone in his bedroom. He doesn't memorize his number, but he comes to recognize the shape of it anyway, when Justin calls asking if he's already at Babylon, when Justin calls deep into the middle of the night, when Justin calls at Brian's request because where the fuck is Brian's phone, it's in this loft somewhere damn it, his number lighting up Brian's caller ID, all of the 1s stretching like fingers.

Two weeks after prom, when Michael leaves for Portland and the doctors finally stop saying the word maybe, Brian drops his phone down the garbage disposal; it's not like there's anyone to call it and find it now, anyway. His new one only gets work numbers.

2

Justin's nervous about forgetting things, slipping through the cracks, looking around at his bat-shattered remains of a life and not recognizing something, so he adds last names to all his contacts. “Brian Kinney,” he types, painstakingly left-handed, and Brian quips, “Why don't you add the Aaron while you're at it,” and Justin, through the fog, smiles to himself at this little breadcrumb he's been handed.

Brian puts him in as “Justin,” no fuss, and at Vic—Vic, of all people--'s suggestion, adds ICE to the end of his name in Justin's contacts, In Case of Emergency, so if he freaks out in the middle of the street or has some flashback in class they'll know to other him and not Jennifer. It never happens, though Justin makes plenty of panicked phone calls himself, for a little while.

After Justin loses his phone at the Sap's party, Brian gets him a new one and Justin now confidently saves him as just “Brian ICE,” grinning a little when it reminds him of an old fight with his mother, and for a while they're just Brian and Justin, and everything's simple.

After Justin leaves at the Rage party, he removes the “ICE” but nothing else.

Brian leaves his alone, because doing anything else might look like he gave it some thought.

3

After a couple they jointly and mistakenly agreed to give Brian's number to won't stop calling, Brian changes his number, and Justin, ever the good intern, saves him as “Mr. Kinney” because it makes him laugh and makes Brian do that thing where he pokes his tongue into his cheek. 

Brian saves Justin's number as “Justin,” again, because despite what you may have heard he's not one for theatrics, okay, he's not, except for how he wakes up one night after a little ecstasy and a lot of tequlia and discovers that at some point in the night he'd changed it to “Sunshine.”

He never changes it again.

4

Justin adds the “ICE” back on when he goes to LA and won't know anybody, which Brian says is stupid because what the fuck is he supposed to do from 2500 miles away. He reiterates this, loudly, a month into Justin's trip when he has an allergic reaction to a bee sting and some frantic PA calls him. “By the time I get there, he'll be dead,” Brian growls, and he can hear Justin wheeze-laughing in the background. 

5

Justin keeps the “ICE” when he's back in Pittsburgh, even when he's not back with Brian, because he can't think of anyone else he'd want to be there in an emergency. 

And then one happens.

A few days later, in a fit of glee, he changes it to “Fiance,” but when he looks at it he gets a knot in his stomach knowing in a couple weeks it will either say “Husband” or it will say “Brian,” or it will say nothing, and he has no idea which one of those it's going to be.

He never changes it again.


End file.
